Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Why is Operation Pillar of Defense necessary? Because rockets have become too much a part of the reality of daily life for kids in southern Israel.

Danielle Schreiber writes: "We took the kids away from the bombed south during operation Pillar of
Defense. Even in safety, they still sense the threat. Take a look at
their playground games..."

Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: David B).

My 8-year old walked in here while I was watching this video (with headsets on, but he reads English and could understand the subtitles). He asked me what the kids were doing, and I told him they were 'playing' tzeva adom (all Israeli kids know what tzeva adom is, even if they don't live in the south). His response was 'why would they do that?'

For the same reason my 27-year old used to 'play' pigua (terror attack) when he was 10. In the spring of 1996, there were two suicide bombings on Jerusalem's number 18 bus on consecutive Sunday mornings. Son # 1, child # 2 coped with that by building elaborate street scenes with his Lego set and then shouting pigua and knocking them down. Basically, they're coping by turning their reality into a game. Around that time, we stopped the younger kids' riding the public buses to school for several years.

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About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com